URGENT help please mineshaft problem

[masterbob117]

hello please help
a number of years ago me and my parents decided to buy our family home under a council scheme. at the time surveys were done and our mortgage was okayed with abbey national.several years later things happened and we could no longer live in that house so we decided to sell nearly 2 years later and nobody has offered an amount the borrowers (now not abbey national) would accept.apparently there now is a mineshaft and we should sell leaveing us 50000 in debt. any advise please. abbey canceled the building insurance right at the beginning of trouble saying we couldnt insure an empty house.Can we not sue the council/origional surveyor/abbey.

[IFA]

It would be unlikely that a surveyor would be expected to know that the house was built on a mine shaft as there would be little or no evidence of this during their visual inspection unless it had caused subsidence or structural movement. It's also impossible for the lender to have known anything about it.

If anything, this probably should have been something that your solicitor identified as part of their searches prior to your purchase as it is their responsibility to carry out local and environmental enquiries on your behalf. Presumably the council knew about it if they originally built the property on the land but they may not have had any obligation to disclose this.

[masterbob117]

Thankyou for your response ifa i should probably add that a mining report was carried out at the beginning as there were mines in the area but it passed and we were told we couldnt have a mortgage if it didnt. if the council are not at liberty to disclose the shaft then i suppose neither are we then.

[Richard Webster]

In what area is the property? How old is the mineshaft? What kind of mine - coal or tin/lead?

Not all the information is properly and accurately recorded.

Don't think Council would necessarily know about the mineshaft.

When things started to go wrong why did you not make an insurance claim at that time?

[masterbob117]

it is in wolverhampton on the birmingham new road the shaft only came to light when a prospective buyer had a survey done a while earlier abbey had cancelled the buildings insurance due to the property being empty.